


In Love...With...You

by StrongerThanAnySword



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4850075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrongerThanAnySword/pseuds/StrongerThanAnySword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at how things might have turned out otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wedding Bells

Roland had been waiting for this day.  
  
He had always aspired to more, of course, but until his promotion to Captain--until his permanent placement at the palace--he had never, in his heart of hearts, seen the path to his destiny very clearly. He knew  marriage was his only option, but the question was how?  
  
The easiest path, of course, would have been Dawn. The younger princess was naturally flirtatious, sincere in all she did, looking for love and not afraid to show it. Custom, however, dictated that Marianne be married first...and after all, she was the Crown Princess, and next in line tor the crown. She had always been a bit...disconnected, all things considered, a bit slower to opening her heart and far less gullible, but as time went on--well, who wouldn't fall in love with him? The dashing, golden Captain of the Guard, Captain Roland, always resplendent in green and golden armor, flawless golden hair and green eyes to match the armor only he and the King were allowed...well, it was an eventuality, after all.  
  
So he was not surprised when the day dawned, pure white flower petals falling around them, looking deep into Marianne's amber eyes, armor polished to perfection so that he could see small spots of light dancing on her dress of spider's silk. His heart was not bursting with love, excitement, or even friendship; he had no true feelings for the Princess, nothing beyond that which the knowledge that she was giving him everything would make him feel. Mostly he felt a deep, burning satisfaction, which swelled to a crescendo when the crowd cheered and they turned, hands clasped, standing together as one.  
  
Finally, here he stood before his subjects--the King of the Light Meadow, at last the ruler he had always known he would be.

 


	2. Dancing in the Dells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year has passed...

A year had gone by.

A year which made Roland's teeth itch, his fingers crawl, his flesh hiss against his armor.  He wanted his war, his army.  He craved it.  He felt as if he could bite the thin air and come away with blood in his mouth.  He wanted it.  He wanted it.

Roland, however, was not a stupid man.

He knew better.  Knew King Dagda would not allow an incursion into the Dark Forest without good reason.  Of course Roland could have killed him and blamed it on the Forest, gotten his war started immediately, but how would he have avoided the increase in security?  He had just gotten to the point where sneaking the newest Lady in the court to his bed was a surety, something that made his pulse hammer instead of making his head pound as if it were going to explode.  His effort to get her placed had been quickly rewarded; even before the wedding, he had been working at it, and now he and Sylvia saw as much--far more--than he and Marianne saw of one another.  All was as he had planned; all was going just as he had wanted.  No, the additional security would not do.  But if he was to slip a few drops of moonseed juice into the King's tea now and again, make him lethargic and slow...yes.  Soon he would be deemed unfit to rule and then he could quietly slip into death.  It was even one of the less painful routes Roland could have gone; he thought he would be commended for his kindness, if only anyone knew.

 His opportunity came swiftly.

 It was almost time for the Elves' Spring Ball, more or less one year after he and Marianne had wed.  Everyone was gathered around the stage and Roland knew no one would notice his momentary absence...by the time he had returned to Marianne's side, false yet convincing smile plastered across his lips, the deed was done.

 "FIRE!"

 Roland leaped smoothly into action, shoving Marianne behind him and calling for water, flying toward the small yet growing flame.  As the fire brigade rushed closer, he rounded a corner and gasped, stumbling back, the picture of surprise and dismay.  "Stay back!" he called frantically, drawing his sword and sparring with an enemy they could not see.  "I-!  Augh!" he jerked forward, on the other side of the flame, and where none could see him clearly he ran his enemy through.

 "Put that fire out!" he called, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow and smoothing his hair back into perfection.  The flames hissed and sputtered, dying, leaving streaks of white across everyone's vision.  

 "Roland!"

 Marianne landed next to him, green gown soot-smudged, and gasped as she took in his face.  "What happened, I-...Ah!"  She jerked away from the small, dark mass on the ground, clinging to his arm.  "Roland, what-"

 Roland didn't let her finish asking the question.  He stepped forward and shoved the form with his armored foot, drawing away as the dying flames revealed the husk to the Queen and the subjects crowding around.  Ignoring their cries of dismay and fear, Roland raised his voice.

 "That, buttercup," he drawled, looking down on Marianne and successfully swallowing his smirk, "is a goblin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moonseed info found here! http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/09/16/16-most-unassuming-yet-lethal-killer-plants/
> 
> Not entirely accurate to real life, but... /shrugs/


	3. The Muster

Marianne watched the muster.

Fairies from all over--from the Gleaming Falls, the Western Windings, the southern Bloom Patches, and Seed Haven--had been swarming to the castle for the past five days, filling the air with the beat and flash of wings.  Armor, dredged up from the basements and attics of the realm, clinked and clanged together as her people donned it, a low buzz of preparation and gossip falling heavily over the courtyard.  The forges, fired up in earnest, went full-tilt all hours of the day and night, smoke and tangy, heavy heat settling over all.

Marianne watched.  The forges and smaller cook- and campfires twinkled in the twilight.

She was frustrated.  Frustrated that it had come to this, that the Dark Forest had attacked from out of nowhere and nothing, that her father (so sick the past few months...) seemed to know nothing and had no council to give, that she was to be left behind to rule over some pittance of her people while their bravest and best marched to war--a war that, come to think of it, had never been properly declared.  She was frustrated that her dreams of friendship with the Dark Forest were scattered around her, that they had gone up like so much smoke hovering over a small dead body.  And these were only the large frustrations.  She was frustrated, too, that Roland had had less and less time for her since the day they got married, frustrated that he was leaving her behind now with what felt like flimsy excuses--no matter how well-intended they were--that, if he would just listen to her, might dissipate...

All in all, she was not a happy Crown Princess.  For Gusts' sakes, she was already Queen in all but name!  She had taken up swordplay just to fill the hours when her Prince should be there with her!  She knew, of course, that he was working ceaselessly on matters of state, but all the same...she sighed and turned away from the window, a sour feeling in her gut.  He'd even been too busy to tell her when the speech to the troops was happening, and as a consequence, she had missed it.  The first truly important thing that had happened since they'd gotten married and she had  _missed_ it.  Her hands curled over her abdomen, vacant as it had ever been.

Breezes bless them, nothing else was happening right now.

Marianne shook her head and drew her shoulders back.  If she wanted to have more say, if she wanted to know what was going on in  _her kingdom,_ well then she was just going to have to make sure of it!  And the first part of that was talking to Roland.  She hadn't seen him since breakfast, after all, and she should check in with him before he rode to war in a few days--if she wasn't careful, she wouldn't see him at all before then.  

She took a deep breath, and marched into the hallway.

Leaving the royal apartments meant that the two Fairy guards--one at either side of the door--stationed for the night jerked to attention and followed her after a moment's pause.  Tonight, it looked like...she peeked.  Sprout and Pip, cousins who looked more like brother and sister apart from their wings.  She smiled a little.  The two were always squabbling good-naturedly, one eye for each other and one eye on the royal or royals they were guarding at the time.  Their presences were warm and friendly, and Marianne trusted them.

"Where to tonight, Milady?" Sprout asked, head bowed slightly in respect.  His hair was almost as red as his wings, a rarity among Fairies.  

"Just to the study," Marianne said smoothly, stepping forward slightly faster to leave the suddenly awkward silence behind.

"Milady..."  Pip, red hair matching Sprout's but with wings as dark as a raven's, chewed on her lower lip and shot Sprout a glance that Marianne felt more than saw as she drew closer, til Marianne could feel the warmth of her skin against her wings.  "You know that Prince Roland doesn't like visitors when he's in the study..."

"I know."  Marianne's voice stayed as smooth as her spider-silk dress, though she had to fight it out around a snag in her throat.  "This is important, though."

"Of course."  And Pip and Sprout fell back to their respectful distance, no doubt communicating with their eyes and silent gestures alone.  Marianne kept her eyes fixed dead ahead, into the dark hallway lit by torches.  It was true; Roland  _hated_ visitors to the study, but she absolutely had to speak to him, and she knew he would be in there, pent up with work...her shoulders relaxed, just slightly, a small curl of mixed worry and affection undulating in her belly.   _He'll work himself to death, if he's allowed to._

When they finally came to the study, Marianne gave merely two knocks--as was her right, as royalty with as much right to the room behind the door as anyone--and swung the door open.

What she saw was a flash of brown-and-orange wings unfurling, which was odd, but not alarming.  But, as Marianne stood there, holding the door open with one hand, her brain seemed to grind to a halt, slowly rewind, and then play again in slow-motion, and it was there that she saw the flash of flesh, of a leg and a breast that did  _not_ belong to Roland and did  _not_ belong to her, and that is when her jaw dropped, a scream building up in her chest and pressing its hands and feet into her throat, making her choke, making her eyes water...

"B-Buttercup!" Roland was saying, blathering in the background, but Marianne's eyes were drifting lower than his wings, staring dumbly at his naked ass, his legs, his feet, back up again...and he was still speaking, still stammering, scrambling for words, but she heard none of it, backing away, then turning, and running, and Pip and Sprout were saying something behind her, yelling, shuffling, but the roaring in her ears was drowning all of that out, and when she burst onto the east balcony, she was already leaping off, wings springing open.  She didn't hear the people below her exclaiming, wondering who was jumping so recklessly off the palace's outcropping, calling for someone to keep an eye on her.

She was too busy leaving them all behind. The chilly night air stung her face and her wings screamed at her for her painfully stupid stunt at the balcony, but all she felt was how her breath was finally back, though it sobbed in and out of her like a saw, how her eyes were watering until the world was a twilight blur as tears rolled across her skin from the force of her speed, and how her mind struggled between shock, pain, and numbness as it continued to show her the one split second that had shattered her world into pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know we all wanted to get to Marianne's point of view (and I definitely wanted to get out of Roland's!)! :)
> 
> Map (not at all detailed or anything) for those of you who are curious:  
> http://comesitbymyfire.tumblr.com/post/150188128198/i-felt-like-i-had-to-come-up-with-some-names-for


	4. Thicket and Thorn

Marianne had always been a skilled flier.  The best in her class in agility and speed, and a close second to a young lad named Down in terms of stamina; Dawn could have beaten both of them in that category, so long as her interest was held, but she was interested in  _everything_ and landed too often to investigate this flower or that lady's dress, exasperating the instructor.

Despite her skills, even she was having trouble.

It had been...hours, perhaps?...since she left the palace, after seeing--

_\--"...and arms to hold you and only you, to protect you for all of our days..."--_

Marianne's mind was going numb.

And not just her mind.  Clad only in a simple dress of spider silk, as she usually was, she was shivering in the damp night air that smelled of storm; only the memories she refused to examine kept her from turning back.   _Just a little longer_ kept running through her mind, as if she was fleeing from a nightmare, as if a little time sitting up in bed with a crackling in the fireplace and a steaming cup of tea would dispel even the memory of her horrific dreams.  Yet, as tempting as that line of thought was, she knew--some little voice in the back of her mind whispered--that this was not a dream, not a nightmare, despite the full moon's light diffused by clouds, casting shadows and monsters all around.

She wondered, feeling distant from herself, if the guards had known.

That was the thought that sparked an emotion in her grayed-out heart and shadowy mind.

 _Had_ the guards known?  Who else?  Who else had known, and said nothing?  Was the whole court in on it?  Were they watching her, laughing into their hands as she passed, mocking her,  _poor Marianne, doesn't even know, hasn't the faintest idea,_ rolling their eyes when she looked up at him with adoration in her own?  What must they think of her?  And hadn't she had any friends in the court, nobody to tell her what was going on?

_Dawn would have said something._

Marianne's eyes were stinging again, and she put her head down, tears and sniffles starting up once more.  That was true; Dawn would have come to her immediately.  Dawn, sweet, gentle Dawn, would never have let the marriage continue; she would be as crushed as Marianne was.  She had adored having an older brother.

 _Poor Dawn._  Marianne snuffled and scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand.  She should return; she should go back to Dawn, tell her, say something...anything...seek comfort, and...her mind shied away from the last thought.  She didn't want to see Roland right now, she didn't want to confront him or capture him.  All the same, she should go back.

That was the thought in her mind when the skies opened up with a crackling not unlike the one her heart had made just hours before.

* * *

Marianne had always been a skilled flier.

But then, Marianne had never flown in the middle of a downpour.

So far, she was holding her own, weaving through the droplets coming down, squinting through the haze, gasping and sometimes screaming as raindrops grazed her skin, tearing at her dress.  She couldn't see properly, couldn't risk taking her eyes off the angry sky to try, and she was trying as hard as she could to steer herself back toward the castle, but all around her was darkness, scarce light gleaming off droplets ranging in size between her head and the entirety of her body; each bolt of lightening disoriented her, each clap of thunder rattled her around within her skin.

A brief flash of light showed her the looming shape of the Dark Forest, much closer than she had thought; in any case, she saw it, and her mind provided one thing and one thing alone:

_Shelter._

Marianne darted forward, straining, wings beating, dodging by a caterpillar's whisker raindrop after raindrop.

 _I'm going to make it,_ she chanted to her self,  _I'm going to make it, I'm going t-_

Another flash of lightening, and a scream, and the acting Queen of the Light Meadow plunged into the brier patch she hadn't seen in time to turn away.  The thunder that followed completely masked the sound of her impact, followed by the tiniest _ting_ as her circlet hit the loamy forest floor.

Marianne felt it ripped from her head, felt the thorns that pierced her skin, felt more than heard the  _pop_ somewhere behind her, and finally, felt the pain wrench through her wings and radiate into the rest of her body, making her contort violently, new waves of pain coming with each motion.

She was screaming as the darkness crept across her vision, and she welcomed it as she fell into unconsciousness.

 


	5. Tiny Star-Flowers

It was dark when Marianne woke up.

She hadn't expected to wake up.  If she had, she would definitely have guessed the pounding headache, the rawness of her throat, the screaming pain in her wings and back, and the dozen-odd bruises, cuts, and scratches across her body.  She remembered, dimly, crashing into the thorn thicket; the springy stuff under her, smelling good but not sweet enough where her nose was pressed to it, did not feel like thorns or branches.

"Roland?" she tried, the noise croaking out of her sore throat.  She tried to move, to push herself up, and gasped--the pain that flared up had her freezing, afraid to try that motion again.

"Roland?" Marianne called, a little louder, confusion compounding her headache.  Where was she?  This stuff under her, which she guessed to be moss when she saw the tiny, five-petaled white flowers blooming across it, was not used in their healing wards; moss didn't grow readily enough in the Meadows to be gathered without trouble.  They much more commonly used sweetgrass blades and blossoms, which loved the sun and grew near the rivers.  Moss, on the other hand, grew much more frequently in...

Marianne gasped and managed to shove herself up onto one elbow, gritting her teeth against the pain in her back and the memories that were flooding into her mind.  Roland, cheating; Roland, trying to convince her all was well; Roland, on their wedding day, winking at the crowd--or was it at someone specifically within the crowd?--Marianne couldn't remember.  She had been staring up at him adoringly, loving the way his armor shone in the sun, the way his hair had that slight wave, the way he looked at her, the way he  _loved_ her...

A sob clawed its way out of Marianne's throat, tears clouding her vision as her head bowed, hanging low.

"Is she sleeping?"

"She's making noise."

"Could it be a dream?"

"Not if she's awake-"

"Is she awake?"

"Not if she's dreaming!"

 The rapid-fire bickering caught Marianne's breath in her chest, which constricted tightly as if caught in a beetle's pincer.  There were two voices; the first was high and whining, and the second one deep and low.  

She slowly raised her head.

She was in a carved-out dungeon, the walls made of stone, the door made of woven thorns.  Her wings throbbed at the sight.  Through the thorns, two short creatures were peering...one was smaller and froggy-looking, with large bulgy eyes, and the other was larger and thicker, solidly built.  At the sight of her movements, they both stopped mid-argument.  

"She  _is_ awake!" the froggy one cried with a large grin, his thin and reedy voice apparently delighted.  

"We'd better tell him!" the solid one cried, turning and quickly lumbering out of sight.  The smaller one hurried after her.

"Wait!" Marianne croaked, one hand reaching out as if to stop them herself, but she gasped and froze at the shooting pain in her back, head falling to rest against the bedding.  "Damn."  Her hand curled into the moss beneath her, squeezing it tightly.

She was in goblin territory.  

She was prisoner the Dark Forest.

Marianne struggled to stay calm.  There were all kinds of stories, all kinds of rumors, of how goblins would steal and eat faeries, and trying not to think of them only had screams rising, clawing their way up her throat.  She fought to breathe, clamping her teeth shut, refusing to allow the goblins hear her.

"So you _are_ awake."

Marianne looked up, startled, to see someone standing there, on the other side of the bars.  Where the others had been short, he was tall--incredibly tall--and he held a staff, solidly-forged, and crowned in amber.  His voice had been rich and deeply accented, and he  _looked..._ he looked like he was covered in spikes, and bark, and old leaves.

Marianne shuddered, clenching her teeth again.  He would  _not_ hear her scream.  He wouldn't.

The figure before her raised a hand to the bars and pushed them up, into the ceiling.  Marianne winced.  She didn't know how heavy they were, but the way her back and wings felt, she didn't think she could raise her arms above her shoulders, let alone raise them enough to escape.

Then, he stepped under them and released the bars, which fell back to the ground, trapping her in the cell with the tall and glowering goblin.  

Marianne did not cower--she didn't--as he stalked toward her, the amber in his staff glinting in the low dungeon light.


	6. Damage Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, back at the Faerie castle...
> 
>  
> 
> AKA, I hate writing from this slime's perspective; only a few more times, God willing.

The dawn came too quickly.

The night had been filled with threatening the two guards--Pap and Squirt, or something--to keep their mouths shut.  Luckily, they had seen little or nothing of what Marianne had seen, confused as to why she had fled, mostly concerned.  Roland had eventually convinced them that she had returned to their quarters, brushing them off with an order to send new guards for the evening, and he had gotten very little sleep himself; he had, after all, returned to the study where his conquest was waiting.

That night, however, he had not seen Marianne anywhere, and when he awoke she had not returned to bed.

 _Sulking somewhere, I suppose,_ he thought sourly, gazing up at the ceiling.  He'd not been out of bed yet when two chambermaids entered, busying themselves with the state of the room and gossiping, as usual, as if he wasn't there.

It was the mention that  _someone had taken a literal flying leap, right off the east balcony, they had_ that caught his attention.

Sneaking away from the muster on the premise of business, he was able to hear much.  All the servants and the gathering fighters were buzzing about it; someone had burst onto the balcony and taken a leap off of it in dangerous fashion.  The gossip was already distorting the story wildly; some claimed it was the Queen, others the Princess, others still holding that it was the ghost of the late Queen (or one far earlier).  Some said she was alone, some said she had a companion.  Almost all of them said she was crying; some held that she was screaming.

No matter what the actual case was, it was clear to Roland that he had to do something, and that Marianne herself had, with her theatrics, given him the perfect way of doing it.

So, at the height of midday, Roland spoke to his people, somber, yet resplendent in his armor as always.

His speech was naturally full of apologetic yet insightful words, asking for patience and begging for strength and help.

And he fought a smile, turning to put his back to the crowd of soldiers and servants alike, as one line was repeated in whispers that were too loud not to be heard, horror and fury beginning to rise, echoed in the words he had said that had now become their own.

_Queen Marianne, captured?_

_Stolen?_

_From right inside the palace?_

He could have planned it better, he decided, feeling self-satisfied...but not by much.


	7. Torn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bog King confronts his new prisoner and is surprised at her reaction to him. Perhaps Faeries were tougher than he had thought...

Bog loomed--he knew he was looming--over the Faerie on her bed of moss, looking unnaturally pale and shaky.  Her wings were splinted and covered in leaves, and she was definitely expending a lot of her strength to stay propped on her elbows the way she was.

Her brown eyes were narrowed into a fierce glare and her teeth were clenched.

 _Well,_  Bog thought grumpily,  _color me impressed._

"Nothing to say?" he asked, stopping a short distance from her, just short of invading her personal space.  "Not even to the person who saved your life?"

"What-"  Her voice broke and he thought he could see her cursing in her mind for it.  "What do you mean?"

The audacity of the question surprised him into laughing, short and sharp.  

"What do I mean?  I am asking you if you have no words of thanks to another living being, who dragged you from the thornbush your stupid Faerie head led you into and took you out of the worst rain of the season to safety and had you patched up besides."  He rested the butt of his staff on the floor and leaned idly against it.

"I would have gotten out just fine, thank you very much."  The Faerie's nose had crinkled--in derision, Bog was sure--and he snorted.

"Oh, aye.  And your poor wing wouldn't have slowed you down at all."

He saw the words hit her like physical blows; she paled, swayed.  Her brown eyes were widening in shock, filling with tears, and she let her head fall forward, hiding them.

_Oh._

She hadn't known.

A small curl of guilt in Bog's heart had him relaxing from his pose and pulling up a slice of log to sit on.

"I'm sorry," he said, wrestling his voice down into softness, feeling uneasy.  He was desperately unused to comforting anyone, let alone a small and weepy Faerie.  His fingers fluttered, all ten of them anchoring around the shaft of iron in his hands.  They wanted to touch her shoulder, gentle, but he forced them to behave.  She was a trespasser, and likely a spy.

Remembering that had his voice firming up again.

"You'll be fine."  His voice was gruff and he looked at the cell door to avoid seeing her dry her eyes.   _Crocodile tears?_   "And flying within a week or so, provided you stay off of them for the time being."

"What's wrong with them?"

Her voice surprised him; it was broken, sad, but there was a small strand of spider-silk in it.  Strong.

"Yer right wing is sprained at the joint," he said after a moment.  "Your left one..."

She looked up at him, brown eyes soft and pleading with him.   _Be gentle,_ they seemed to say, and Bog sighed internally.

"Torn."

 

 


	8. The Bravery of Faeries

That single word had Marianne feeling like she was falling from a thousand feet, spiraling as she dropped like a stone straight towards the earth.  Her blood raged in her ears and her skin grew cold.  She was gasping for air suddenly; she couldn't breathe.

"How badly?" she managed, tears returning with a vengeance.  She hadn't cried properly yet, not upon waking up a prisoner, nor upon seeing her captor stride into the room, nor even at his harsh tone when he had addressed her, but the idea that she could lose her wings had her calm cracking, her already-unstable footing falling away like crumbling sandstone.  

The large, rough figure sitting before her said nothing.

"Please tell me.  Please."  Her voice was harsh and broken; her breath was coming in pants and she struggled to keep a rising scream in her chest.

"It's a fairly even tear," the large goblin said, clearly uneasy.  "It runs nearly up to the base of your wing, but it's nothing that cannot be fixed."

"Fixed?"  Marianne choked on the word as it came out, half-laugh, and the sound turned into a sob.  She thought--she felt--she swallowed, convinced now that she was fighting a rising tide of vomit.  "My wing is _torn,_ you said.  You don't have to spare my...my feelings..."  More choking, swallowing it down.  Tears were burning hot on her face and plopping just as hotly onto her arms; she slowly lowered her face in the moss, trying not to shake with the force of her cries, trying not to let him know she was splintering in two, four...  What had she done to deserve this, she wondered dimly, feeling as if she was standing off to the side and watching herself.  What had she done to deserve this?

_Visions, memories; a young Faerie in her flight class, just slightly older than Marianne herself; she'd been in some kind of horrific accident, her rich brown wings all but ripped away from her body--bird attack, they'd whispered to each other--matching pitying faces whenever they saw her in a hallway or a corridor around the palace, shuddering when they saw the stubs of wing that remained, shorn close to the skin, ragged.  She'd disappeared, but sometimes Marianne thought she saw her, working as a servant, emptying the ash buckets, beating the rugs..._

"Get some rest," Marianne heard dimly, that same gruff voice sounding solid, yet far away.  "I'll be back down to check on you in the morning."

"Wait-"  Marianne looked up so suddenly that she felt dizzy.  She sniffled and huffed as a few more tears trickled down the tear-worn tracks on her face.  "Wh-I-I..."  

She suddenly couldn't think of anything to ask; she just didn't want to be alone.  

"I..."

The large, dark figure waited, looking oddly patient despite his pinched-together lips.   _Something in his eyes_ ; the thought flitted away before she could think it properly, but Marianne's eyes were caught by his, and she felt trapped, pinned beneath their gaze.

Marianne felt, suddenly, foolish, and even more alone than she had before.  

She let her gaze drop down to the moss, jaw clicking closed.

 _I wonder if anyone is looking for me_.  

She felt detached, and her head felt as floaty as a dandelion seed, and each beat of her heart hurt like the muscle was actually bruised and torn.

"Get some rest," she heard again, the words somehow out of time with the mouth that spoke them, and Marianne bowed her head to the moss, succumbing to merciful sleep.

She did not hear the gate lift, nor the stranger's slow retreat, but she would have been surprised that he'd hesitated.


	9. A Sister's Determination

It wasn't like Marianne to go missing.

Well, of course it wasn't.  In the year that she had married Roland, many things might have changed; she'd become slower to laugh, more somber...but then, she had had a lot on her shoulders--especially after their father fell ill--yet she had been constantly worried about doing her part, about filling her role to the best of her ability.  

Which was why the news of her kidnapping had come as a shock...and then as a relief, an _of course_.

And then as a panic.

Dawn had spent the entire rest of the day with Roland's words ringing in her ears.   _Kidnapped, taken, stolen from within..._ They repeated over and over and over again, til she felt like grabbing the tips of her ears and pulling them down to block out the noise.  They accompanied thoughts, visions, of Marianne, dragged into the Forest, tortured, tormented, eaten up like in all the scary stories she had ever been told, and worse yet...

"Dawn?"

The tone of Sunny's voice had her snapping out of her thoughts and the constant loop of words, looking down and to the side and blinking, returning to the seat in front of her vanity, pleasantly warmed by the afternoon sun streaming in through a glassless window.

Sunny's warm brown eyes stared up at her, clearly worried.

"Dawn, I'm so sorry," he whispered, and she could tell that he was--that he was as worried about Marianne as any of them.  Almost as much as she was.

She sniffled and dropped her gaze to her lap, scrubbing at the wetness on her face.  She wanted to speak; she wanted to tell Sunny everything, she wanted to spill all of her worry and pain out into the warm sunbeam where she sat and let him take it all and make it better, the way he always did.  She wanted him to pluck through her worries and fears with his delicately careful fingers, examine them one by one, and tell her why each and every one of them was false, nothing to be afraid of.

She couldn't find a single word to start.

"We're gonna get her back," Sunny promised, reaching out almost hesitantly to squeeze her hands in his larger, rougher ones.  "We're going to go and get her, no matter what.  We'll bring her home."

"Thank you, Sunny."  Dawn's voice cracked, and she hated it, but she threw herself forward anyway to fold her friend in a hug, sniffling and fighting the hiccups rising newly in her chest.  "Thank you," she whispered again.  It was all she could manage.  She squeezed her eyes shut.

Sunny was hugging her back.  Solid, firm, smelling of earth and soap and the flowers from the field.  "I promise," he whispered in her ear, breath ghosting over her skin as he gave her a squeeze.

A horn from outside drew her back and away, sniffling and wiping tears off of her face, smiling ruefully and huffing a laugh, an apology in her eyes and the droop of her wings and the slight downturn of her ears.

"I have to go."  He smiled up at her, and he looked sad.  "I'll come back before the muster marches."  He seemed to struggle, to fight with himself for a moment, before standing on his toes and giving her a peck on the cheek before running out the door, leaving Dawn alone with her thoughts and the quiet of a room just outside a huge buzz of activity.

A minute passed, the clash between Dawn's silent room and the courtyard's loud muster growing more and more discordant.  Just when she thought she would burst, her spine straightened and she surged to her feet, something brave and impulsive twanging through the core of her being.

Dawn narrowed her eyes at the window in front of her.

It wasn't like Marianne to go missing.

Dawn turned briefly, grabbing only her cloak, before she straightened once more and swept her way out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry about the long wait, everyone...for some reason, my muse is just being a little shitbrick. I ended up just posting this chapter after struggling with it since the last update...ugh, ILWY is not turning out at all as I planned. :/ I'm sorry, everyone.


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